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Earlier today, I saw a Facebook post reprinting an article in the Salisbury Post lamenting the decline of unbiased reporting in that thing we cherish that has been so widely and weirdly demonized of late, “the mainstream media.”

I attacked the piece’s sorry punctuation. In my view, if you’re going to attack the entire landscape of American newspapers, in a newspaper, then take a bit of care with the English language.

That, of course, was an invitation. I was called “twisted and biased,” and other things. I was scorned because my comment did not garner any “likes.” I was told that I was rude and to get that trash off of Facebook. One comment said, to me, “Most people are working to support the 47% that depend on the [sic] goverment to even think about punctuation just saying that’s a totally stupid statement to bring into the discussion.It’s facebook by the way if you have not figured that out.”

All valid.

That was rude, so I did remove it from Facebook.

But I felt a need, given Trump’s constant attacks against the horrors of the media he so worships, to defend newspapers, journalism, and mainstream media.

The guy running for president has little regard for the words of our third president, Thomas Jefferson, who said: “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”

Here’s my defense, previously posted deep in the bowels of Facebook and now posted here.

I am biased. Absolutely. I would assert that almost everybody is, and that it takes some effort to generate objectivity in today’s politically charged climate.

There is a tradition of objective reporting in journalism. We don’t see as much of that as we used to. There’s a lot of noisy stuff out there. But it still exists, and many newspapers and reporters in other media are committed to that good ol’ fashioned objective news reporting.

The author of the column in question makes the case that mainstream news outlets are all biased liberals, but it’s carefully concealed and most of us are too stupid to see that. They do it consistently. Intentionally. Maliciously. The examples he cites are ludicrous.

Yet, given the depths of his hate for anything Clinton, I can understand how it would look that way.

According to these numbers, one can speculate that one of two things is happening. 1) Either the media has swung sharply to the left in the past four years, or 2) the editorial staffs almost unanimously think that Clinton is more qualified to be president than Trump. With all the emotion around this election season, the endorsements are costing some publications precious subscribers.

Consider that newspapers are also biased toward accuracy and coherent writing. A sentence is an expression of a thought. A paragraph is an expression of an idea. Certain people develop skills in building thoughts and ideas into coherent narratives that are fit for public consumption. We call these people journalists, editors, writers, and other things. They sometimes find employment at newspapers. The ones who do, spend their days gathering and reporting news.Many of them are highly trained and take their objectivity very seriously.

They do have a bias. They are biased toward communicating.

If we don’t agree with them, we accuse them of bias. Some of them are biased. Many of them are professionals who seek to report news in an objective fashion, leaving their bias aside. They also happen to be human beings and sometimes make mistakes. They generally accept disagreement, abuse, and accusations.That’s part of the job.

Some publications, of course, have a stated political bias. They usually own up to that and are proud of it.

Sometimes the truth itself is biased because it supports one side over the other. For example, when the New York Times reported the 9/11 attack, Osama bin Laden smiled. He considered it a victory.America wept. Of course the New York Times was not biased toward Osama bin Laden.

Even though it occurs to many as a Clinton bias, the nation’s newspapers are biased toward what they see as the truth:that Trump is unfit.

Not a single living president or major American newspaper has endorsed Trump. I’ve heard people demonize them all. Fine — but that begins to strike at the heart of our democracy. It would have more power to present a compelling argument.

The author of the column in question suggests that all major American newspapers are only pretending to be objective. He says they are, in reality, biased. In other words, they are unscrupulous. All of them? This is absurd. This also begins to undermine the basic fabric of our democracy.

It’s perfectly legitimate to point out bias.My point, however, is that if one wants to argue against a publication’s sneaky bias, then it has little credibility if it’s not done in the same language as the publication in question. It would make no sense to write a rebuttal in Chinese to an article written in English. That’s why it occurs to me as ridiculous when I see a rambling string of words that’s not grounded in the basic rules of common English usage attack the most coherent thinking and writing that’s being published in the top newspapers in the country.

They declared war on public and higher education, including steps that cut teachers’ pay, cut teachers’ assistants, and cut teachers’ job security.

They passed laws that legalize discrimination — not only for transgenders in the bathroom — but for all minorities in the workplace. This lost the state hundreds of millions of dollars. It caused tech companies to look elsewhere. The hospitality industry has been struck down. Artists have canceled events. And it also lost one of our state’s most precious assets — NBA, ACC, and NCAA basketball games!

The governor and legislature did this. How have the people reacted to HB2? By arguing. McCrory has been the Governor of Wedge Issues. One after another. The Democrats say we need to repeal HB2 and get our state back. According to my social media feed, many Republicans say things that poo poo the artists, companies, and athletic organizations. They say things like “Good!” and “Leave!”

This tree pummeled our neighbor’s yard and they had a lawn party scheduled for that afternoon. Our house was built in 1940, and from looking at the rings on the tree’s trunk, I’m guessing the tree was about the same age.

The winds came on Friday evening, about 8pm. It was a short burst of heavy wind, without lightening or thunder. The rain came a few minutes later, and there was very little of it. After a few minutes, all was calm, and this tree blocked our driveway and filled our neighbor’s yard.

I called J.R. that night. By the time I had gotten out of bed and made coffee on Saturday morning, he was cutting up the tree — which he rolled to the street by himself. By 1 or 2 o’clock, he was finished. J.R. is a worker!

The North Carolina Governor plainly told the nation, on ‘Meet the Press,’ that we need more dialogue.

“And let’s have this dialogue and I welcome that dialogue,” he said.

In another interview, he says, “What we need is dialogue, instead of threats. […] I see at the national level with presidential politics, I see even with this issue with the threats and the letters and the boycotts—I don’t see conversation. I don’t even see people reading things before they threaten to boycott. Why don’t we have a conversation?”

I wonder if he really means that — or what he means by that.

Skye Thomson, a transgender boy, says The Governor declined to have dialogue with him. This young man is still offering that opportunity to The Governor of North Carolina.

I’m thinking that dialogue, in McCrory’s world — the world of politics and getting re-elected — means that he hopes people will spend from now until the election talking about how right he is for being in favor of having separate bathrooms for men and women. It’s hard to disagree with that. What a dialogue!

And something else of high interest to our Governor:What must it be like to be in the bathroom with a transgender person? A person whose genitalia does not match his or her appearance? The governor is quite interested in that — and he hopes all of us will be too.

These are fascinating dialogues.

A dialogue like that takes the attention off things like declining public education, declining higher education, unpopular and ineffective building of toll roads, inadequate minimum wage, loss of human rights, and the huge economic and cultural damage caused by legislation he has signed into law.

Not to mention the fact that North Carolina taxpayers are spending billions to provide health insurance to low income residence of other states, while half a million low income residents of McCrory’s state are denied health insurance, because he and the legislature have denied Medicaid expansion here. To heck with morality or dignity or humanity in matters of health, life, and death. Better to be right about that pesky Obamacare than allow care for the poor in his own state.

He also caused much pain to those who were already suffering when he cut unemployment benefits in 2013, at a time when North Carolina had an unemployment rate over 8% and workers here were pretty desperate.

We’re not talking about bad stuff that happened under his watch. Good and bad has happened under his watch. The governor is not all-powerful. He did not cause jobs to be lost.

But these things — real damage to public schools, state universities, state workers, economic development, providing health and well being for people, and cultural losses — these were not unintended consequences. These things are the result of a clear intention. These things happened because he caused them to happen as a direct result of legislation he signed.

Much has been written about the Governor’s hypocrisy (see The epic hypocrisy of Gov. PatMcCrory). I’m saying that McCrory is telling the truth. He does want dialogue. He wants lots of dialogue, between now and the election.

And he wants that dialogue to be about bathrooms and human sexuality (fun stuff that anybody can talk about). And, although he won’t directly start it (he’s no Donald Trump), if he can frame the conversation such that a little hate speech for sexual minorities becomes the dialogue-du-jour between now and the election, he’ll welcome that kind of dialogue too.

It’s an excellent distraction from real issues that impact the lives of real people in the Tar Heel State.

It’s smart politics. It’s not a very noble way to govern a state that’s been pretty good to him.

We rarely called her by her full name, Jackie Mudpie. She mostly went by Jackie, and sometimes Jack-Jack or Sweet Doggie, or various sounds like Doggie-woogie-beegie-baggie-boo.

Most people have a special voice they use for their dogs, and so did I. It’s a high tone that’s a little squeaky, a little weird, and full of affection — and it comes from a different place that’s reserved for objects of pure delight.

She had a long life for a dog and was a baby until the end.

She was a fast learner and messed the house only twice — on the first day we brought her home, and twelve years later, on her last day of life.

The day we found her is a vivid memory for all of us.

A few weeks prior, we had lost a dog in a tragic accident. The guy who mowed my parents yard had not shut the fence gate on departure, and the love of my daughter’s life, Honey, had raced onto Innes Street and been hit by a car.

In the days that followed, I took Emma to look at puppies and none were suitable. I begged her to settle on a puppy to ease the pain. There was no replacing Honey.

Emma was still in love with Honey and still too struck with grief to consider another dog, but my mom, like me, had other ideas. My mom was a person who knew what was best for her grandchildren, whether they agreed or not. And she was persistent — not one to lose an argument, even with a grieving eleven year old.

She persuaded Emma to keep looking, whether she wanted to or not, and insisted, one Saturday morning, that we take a ride to Albemarle. She had the address of a woman with a yard full of dogs that needed to be rescued.
As it turns out, the dogs did need rescuing, but the woman who lived in the house needed rescuing more. She was a stressed out mess with 50 dogs on her hands. People dropped them in her yard. She fed them bread from the day-old bread store. She begged us tell people about her, to send help, to get Mom to write an article about her and her plight.

Mom had not gone with us. Neither had Alicia. That task was assigned to my father, a man of action. Dad was the primary finder of things that matter: puppies, cars, shoes, houses, safe spaces. He drove, leading us on this adventure to Albemarle. I sat in the front. Emma sat in the back with Sarah, her older sister, her pillar and protector of all things emotional.

The place was depressing, with too many unhappy dogs, all begging for their freedom inside a maze of fencing. Emma proved that she was right. There was not a single dog on the property that could replace Honey. We turned to go home.

As we walked down the hill, toward the car, there was a puppy on the loose that seemed to appear from nowhere and somehow sprang into Sarah’s arms. Emma immediately joined the 3-way embrace.

Having survived a diet of bread, Jackie was sweet, frail, and grateful. She was anemic and walked with a limp. We thought she was a lab and hoped she would live.

I remember Dr. Almond’s smile as she advised us on bathing and brushing and other matters of care. She told us Jackie was a feist and gave us vitamins.

Alicia is quite skilled at nurturing young beings, and our new family member soon thrived.

Jackie never gave us any problems. Emma taught her to sit, shake, turn around, lie, come, and speak.

She would get on the couch and be petted by three or four people at once. In our house, Jackie was like the Beatles. She was the object of our over-the-top group affection.

We took a thousand pictures of her, trying, unsuccessfully, to capture her true essence. She was so black that she barely showed up in photographs.

We often walked her three blocks to my parents house to visit their dogs. My parents also had a cat. The first time Jackie tried to play with the cat, she got scratched on the nose. After that, when she saw the cat, she took cover behind a human being and cried.

Aaron was off at college. My father passed away. Sarah moved to Alaska. Emma went to college. Mom’s health declined and her life came to an end.

And then it was us, the empty nesters — Alicia, me, and the one who never left, Jackie.

She slept on our bed. Some nights, when we were up late, working, she would go upstairs around midnight and keep the bed warm and wait for us.

She took turns being with Alicia, while she worked in her office, and with me, in my office — until a few months ago. I don’t know why, but toward the end of her life, she stopped coming to my office (which has a separate entrance outdoors).

She had amazing bladder control. When we took day trips to visit Emma at college in Asheville, we made frequent stops for her to pee and no matter how much we coaxed, she would never go. Jackie was a bit of a private lady, and a creature of habit. She held it until she got home to visit her familiar bathroom spots in the ivy bed.

When we got chickens, she behaved herself, although sometimes she would chase them briefly, for a moment of fun and exercise. Sometimes, when they free-ranged, she would be naughty and enter the hen pen and eat their food — but she was all-in-all gentle and friendly with any and all living creatures.

She enjoyed walks, especially in the Catawba Nature Preserve, where she often went for a swim or momentarily sprinted after a vanishing deer.

Up until her arthritic end, she devoted her entire being to pleasing Alicia and me. She could still take a two mile walk, and, although it took maximum effort and sometimes a little help, jump up onto the bed.

But I knew the time was coming. I had given considerable thought to the location of her final resting place and had chosen a spot in the yard for that.

Alas, I didn’t expect it to happen the way it did. Somehow we talk about the future like we know it, and of course we never do and never could. It happened on a cold day of frozen ground, with earth too solid for me and my shovel and Jackie’s entry.

Her death came on Super Bowl Sunday. Very early, when it was still dark out, she wanted to go out. That was unusual. Once out, she did not want to come back in. Also unusual. We got her in and soothed her with our words as she lay on the couch, thinking she had eaten something bad. The last time that happened, the vet said not to give her any food for a day, and she got better.

I was hoping that was it — that she would throw up again and start to feel better. But I feared it was the end and said to her what I needed to say. I told her I loved her and thanked her for being such a great dog.

She didn’t get better. She started to cry. We called our vet, and then the emergency vet — who said to bring her in.

We loved her deeply, and she knew that.

Mostly she loved us. No one teaches the art of love and loss like a pet dog. What a gift.

On Sunday, we situated a blanket underneath her and carried her to the car, and, at the moment we gently laid her into the backseat, the one who never left, left.

I’ve spent a lot of time over the past two weeks trying to outsmart a clever flock of backyard chickens.

I did not succeed.

Humans have a long history of dominating these little creatures. We eat their eggs and eat them. We live longer, eat more interesting food, live more interesting lives, use languages, create science and art. So one could say that we are the superior species and I’m happy to report that in the end my will has prevailed.

But let’s back up.

The last two weeks have been very, very busy.

I work at home, which is great. I love it and I’m not complaining.

That said, I publish a paper 52 weeks a year and vacations are few and far between.

Two weeks ago, we were fortunate enough to take an eight day trip to Seattle. While there was some work involved, and two days of training — most of the time was spent enjoying ourselves and visiting with family.

I was inspired. When I got home, I subscribed to a software service called Scrumdo.com. The system is designed for software developers. I’m not that — but I’ve applied the method to my own brand of madness, using it as a kind of ‘to do’ list and have, well, gotten a lot done…

I’ve done stuff around the house, accomplished tasks for the business, attended networking events, made progress on the writing of a screenplay, participated in a training and development program, and other stuff…

And I’ve also spent a lot of time dealing with something I was not planning on doing — trying to outthink a chicken!

It’s been a grand experiment, an adventure.

Over the winter, our older, retired birds (who had not been laying eggs for some time) got even older, and died.

In the past, we got chickens when they were young — a few months old.

This time, I went with my daughter and her friend to Tractor Supply and picked out a shoebox full of iddy biddies — one day old chicks.

Alicia and I have been busily obsessed with the raising of these birds, and they have thrived.

At first, they pecked and chirped under a warming lamp in the house, then on the porch, and finally in the henhouse (with an extension cord and light to keep them warm). Next came warmer weather — no more lamp.

Finally, the day came when it was time to let them free range. We let them loose.

Such freedom. They were a joy to watch. It was fascinating to see them stick together. If one chick decided to dart across the yard and explore the area underneath a bush, the others scurried to join her. They were a tightly knit group — funny, adventurous, and entertaining.

And then, a couple of weeks ago, the summer heat kicked in abruptly, early, and with a vengeance. The temps reached the upper 90’s and that’s where we’ve been each day.

One night, after sundown, when I went to close the door of the hen pen, they were not inside.

Moments later, I found them, high up in a tree (actually a large holly bush), enjoying the night air.

The next morning, they were eager to get back inside for food and water.

We punished them by leaving them inside for a week — a time of retraining.

The idea is that these chickens live in the hen house, lay eggs in the morning, free range and eat bugs in the yard during the afternoon, and return to their pen at night, so they’re in their proper place to lay eggs in the morning for our breakfast.

They are due to start laying in three weeks, and we need the routine in place NOW.

During their week in the hole, I replaced the door with a screen, and then upgraded to a shutter window, for ventilation.

Again, we let them free range.

I’ll spare you the drama, but after they spent that night in the tree (all together) getting them back in the henhouse was not as easy.

I ask you. How do they get to a height of 10 or 15 feet in a tree?

My assumption was that they flew there.

So we sentenced them to another week of captivity and then clipped their wings. It’s a two person job. I held the chicken and fanned out the wing while Alicia administered the feather cutting.

We’ve done this before, with past chickens, to keep them from flying over the fence. It does not hurt the chicken. It’s like a haircut. You only clip the feathers on one side. That way they can still fly — but they’re off balance and fly in a circle and can’t go high enough to jump a fence or, presumably, reach the upper branches of a large holly bush.

Last night, just before dusk, we gave these clipped fowl a few minutes of freedom.

My theory was this: During their week of incarceration, they had probably forgotten about the tree, and if even if they remembered it, it was already late in the day. They didn’t have time for a lot of exploring. They would stay close, and go to bed in their proper place at night.

And even if they did not feel the time crunch and wanted to try the tree shenanigans again, they would be hindered by their lack of balance.

I should have known. The past clippings never stopped them from jumping a fence.

They slept in the tree.

I spent much of today trying to coax them back into the henhouse.

They certainly remembered the clipping and took it personally. They held it against me. They were aloof. They kept their distance.

I gave them treats of pineapple and banana. I shook the can of cracked corn (Pavlov’s discovery is pretty obvious when you shake a can of cracked corn near a group of chickens. They will come running for it).

The plan was to befriend and outsmart them. I’ve done it before. Lure them home, into the pen, and then come up with another plan.

They spent the day ignoring me and my treats.

They would eat the treats, but not the way I had in mind. I would throw out some corn and they would act oblivious, like they didn’t care. Then, when I walked away and looked back from a distance, they would enjoy the treats.

Manipulation, domination, and trickery did not work.

This evening, at dusk, I stood at attention, daring them to fly into the tree — and I got to see it. They weren’t flying into the tree. They jumped, one limb at a time — up, up, and up.

A couple of them (such good girls!) actually went to bed in their pen.

A couple of them roosted on branches I could reach. After dark, I grabbed them and put them to bed.

When it’s dark, a chicken is nearly blind and completely vulnerable (which is one of the reasons I don’t want them in the trees — for their own safety!).

Tonight, with Alicia shining a flashlight up into the tree, I was the one who was perched — perched atop a stepladder and still unable to reach these girls. So I bent the branches until I could grab a sleeping chicken’s foot and wrestle it off it’s comfy branch.

With one, rather than falling off a ladder, I had to pry its leg from the limb and drop it to the ground and chase it around the yard.

Like I said, a chicken is nearly blind in the dark — so while it wasn’t easy, I did have the vision advantage and finally chased it into the darkest of shadows and grabbed it.

Now they’re all in, where they are safe and have a modest sized run. It’s time for plan B, whatever that is.

So for the past two weeks, that’s my life. The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time… and spending that extra time trying to outsmart a chicken.

I went to the show. It was a bit of a drive, but I took the back roads, through Sumter National Forest, and it was quite pleasant.

Not knowing what to expect at 3pm on Easter Sunday in a black box theatre in rural South Carolina, it turned out to be a blast. There was a great audience and plenty of good material in the five one-acts — and a great assemblage on stage of talented, fully self-express college students.

There’s something about spring on a college campus. All that end-of-year emotion — the vibrancy of youth mixed with the anxiety of upcoming exams and pending completion.

Seeing ‘Responsibility’ was a blast from the past. It refers to CD’s and videos from Blockbuster and the American Taliban.

The students were wonderful and did a great job. The best part was getting to meet them after the show.

I have a big ol’ soft spot in my heart for education, and am grateful to be included in this way.

I asked Alicia to take a picture of me in the yard. I called the dog and the chicken over. The chicken did not obey, so Alicia sort of herded it in my direction.

And she took the picture.

I slapped on a a picture of a goat and posted it online and sent a few emails.

Voilå. April Fool’s was complete.

Daughter Emma sent an immediate text: “April Fool’s.”

I asked if she was fooled at all.

“For a minute,” she texted.

My sister emailed and said “adorable.”

Lisa Davidson emailed saying she “can’t wait to see it.”

Daughter Sarah was delighted. She texted her mother that she had always wanted a goat.

I called someone tonight who happened to have seen that picture. That was yesterday. This was today. And this was about a completely unrelated matter. Immediately upon answering the phone, she asked, “How’s the goat?”

So I had the opportunity to say “April Fool’s” a few times. I’m guessing I’ll have the opportunity to say it a few more times in the future.

However, many of the people who saw my Facebook post are old or geographically distant friends. Some of them I haven’t seen or spoken with in years. Are they curious to know what’s become of me? I wonder what they must think now, considering I’m the proud owner of a little goat.

Although things in social media have a degree of permanence, they also have a certain ephemeral quality. It’s a vast, noisy space. It would not be plausible to contact them all with the news that this was my way of celebrating the 1st day of April.

I know that we give less than a nanosecond of thought to most things that go by on Facebook, and that few people gave this a full second of thought.

Nevertheless, I am experiencing some incompletion around the joke.

It’s one thing to play a joke on a person and then finalize the event by saying “April Fool’s.”

But posting something to social media just puts it out there, leaving some people with the thought that I’m crazy enough to live within the city, with a modest sized yard, and own a goat.

No disrespect intended for those who have goats.

And I have nothing but respect and admiration for goats and the contribution they provide.

But I’m sort of left with the thought that I may have April fooled myself.